Pretty Little Liars has perfected the art of a good mystery, and Alison (Sasha Pieterse) is still at the center of it all. From who killed her, to who tried to kill her, to who would want to kill her now, Ali’s drama continues to take center stage, and for the first time, it looks like the Liars are ready to move in a different direction.
In “Surfing the Aftershocks,” Spencer (Troian Bellisario) and Melissa (Torrey Devitt) have what is probably the longest conversation fans have ever witnessed, and for once Melissa’s advice may not be completely out of line. Ali clearly isn’t the worst person on the planet, but she seems to suck everyone around her into an ominous oblivious. The Liars have given up years of their lives at this point focusing on what happened to Ali, and it isn’t even over yet. The real story is still unfolding in bits and pieces as new sources of information spring up from unlikely places. It’s not that the Liars haven’t been doing other things, but most of that has fallen to the wayside as being tormented by ‘A’ consumed a good majority of their free time.
It was a novel concept to think that Ali being back in Rosewood would do anything but make things things worse. The temporary peace that Hannah (Ashley Benson) and the girls fell into with Mona (Janel Parrish) seems to have ended now that the conditions have changed. Mona still appears to have a soft spot for Hannah, but she’s proven before that that sentiment only extends so far.
The Liars always believed that if they could just figure out what happened to Ali, they could liberate themselves from ‘A’s’ control. But was that ever really the case? At this point they have been involved in so many illegal and equally demeaning activities that it would be hard to completely put that in the past. It would be nice if they could figure out a way to have some semblance of a normal life though. Obsessing over your dead best friend returned from the grave hardly sounds like the best use of a social life.